10 Years of Adult Use Cannabis

This month marks 10 years since Oregon passed Measure 91, which created our Adult Use cannabis program. Since then, the state has grown, sold, taxed and consumed a tremendous amount of cannabis (including edibles, vaporizers and other canna products.)

While there are valid arguments that in doing so the state decimated its long-running Oregon Medical Marijuana Program, the benefits from Adult Use have been multifold. Most would agree we are better off now than we were 10 years ago, be it the taxes raised, the jobs created, the relief offered, or the fears of prosecution alleviated.

In 2014, only Washington state, Colorado, Oregon and the District of Columbia had Adult Use programs. By 2024, 24 states, two territories, and D.C have such programs. Voting on establishing Adult Use programs just concluded in Florida, Nebraska, North and South Dakota. A Gallup poll in 2023 found approximately 70% of Americans favor cannabis legalization, the highest it’s ever been since Gallup began asking the question in 1969.

But problems remain in states which have established Adult Use, including Oregon. Granted, many issues could be solved through re/descheduling cannabis at the federal level. But each state seems to have struggles with its own program.

In September, I wrote about the growing pains experienced in New York. New York City in particular has been playing whack-a-mole with more unlicensed dispensaries (3,000+) than Oregon has licensed dispensaries statewide (824).

In May, its “Padlock To Protect” program began, shuttering 1,200 illegal dispensaries through October. (One unlicensed dispensary was even fined a staggering $9.5 million for refusing to cease operating despite warnings going back to June 2023.)

But a Queens judge ruled late last month that New York City’s efforts were unconstitutional, moving the City to file an emergency appeal. But per the Associated Press, the plaintiff’s attorney Lance Lazzaro, “predicted the ruling would allow every store that has been shut down to reopen and sue for damages, including for lost business and reputational harm.” Larazzo is not a newcomer to the idea, having filed a class action suit back in June 2024 on behalf of over two dozen dispensaries that had been shut down by the city.

A recent study determines no more than 15% of cannabis sales are done through the state’s 222 licensed dispensaries, which could expand to over 1,000 if the illegal shops were shut down.

On the other side of the country, California continues its own battles against unlicensed sales, which one study estimates accounts for more than half of the state’s cannabis sales. That isn’t welcome news to the licensed industry, who found 2024 to be another bruising one at best. The SF Gate ran a story in June saying, “Overall sales have been falling for the past two years. The number of legal cannabis growers and brands has decreased by more than 70% since legalization first went into effect…. companies owe the state more than $730 million in back taxes, money that California likely will never see as most of those companies have already folded…employment in the legal industry is also falling…and Michigan has surpassed Cali as the nation’s largest legal marketplace.”

Here at home, things look brighter on some fronts, while also confirming long-held suspicions about inflated potency claims.

Thanks to ideal grow conditions, and a reduction in wildfires, the sun-grown harvest for 2024 is being deemed a “huge improvement” over recent years. This should result in a greater variety and lower prices for consumers.

The less-happy news is that the state is considering pulling the licenses of three cannabis testing labs that were caught boosting the THC content of submitted flower samples, while another four face suspension or fines. The Portland Business Journal reports that in one case, “…Lab employees ‘added a cannabinoid concentrate, kief, to the samples taken for testing…”

This may just be the start, as the Journal continues that an attorney for one of the labs states, “They’re going after the labs, then the employees involved, then all the producers and wholesalers who are implicated… you saw the first wave, but you’re going to see more.”

Once again: Chasing THC numbers in flowers is for fools.

This article appears in Source Weekly November 7, 2024.